As a pilot dealt with the frightening situation of losing engine power while flying over Ajax Monday evening, witnesses described how the airplane came to a sudden stop on a major street.
“We didn’t sleep last night because we knew things could have gone off the rails,” Debbie Gilker told CityNews on Tuesday, just steps from where she and her husband John Gliker discovered the broken-down Cessna 150M.
The longtime Ajax couple said they were returning home from Whitby after visiting their grandson.
It’s around 8 p. m. While he was on Bayly Street East, near Audley Road South, a community of agricultural, commercial and residential homes southwest of the intersection of Highways 412 and 401, when John said he saw fires sailing in the sky.
“You might see the plane in its entirety and it’s a small plane that flies very low, flying incredibly low to the east, so I immediately turned around and started following it because we suspected there was going to be a landing or a twist of fate. “And we try to deliver. Be there if the pilot wants help,” he said.
“My first reaction was to think the plane was going to crash and I couldn’t see why my husband was turning towards the plane. . . My idea was to go ahead and get away from the crash site,” Debbie added.
The pair said within a minute, the plane stopped after hitting a traffic light at Audley Road South and Bayly Street East. It narrowly missed several electrical wires.
“We were hit at the intersection . . . and the plane had already landed and was heading in the direction of the eastbound lanes,” John said, noting a woman near the intersection at the time approaching the pilot.
“He got stuck because I guess the chassis of a plane had broken and none of the doors were opening. In the end, he was able to pull through. “
Debbie recalled how she tried not to let the pilot get hurt.
“I did speak to him and then he ended up on the phone after that, but he kept saying, ‘I’m all right,’” she said.
The plane headed into the cul-de-sac of Audley Road South, not far from the crash site, and remained unsecured there Tuesday night. The wingtips, the most sensitive part of the plane above the cockpit, and the left side door appear to have suffered maximum damage, but the plane was fully intact.
Air traffic recordings released on LiveATC. net detail the disorders the pilot encountered.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday,” the unidentified pilot can be heard after leaving Oshawa Executive Airport.
“Satisfy me. I’m at 2000 feet.
The pilot is heard saying that he wants to restart the engine. An air traffic controller asked the pilot to identify his position. The transmission was briefly interrupted in places, but the pilot said he might only see one road.
“Just watch the traffic and land where you can land safely, and touch me when you’re safe,” the controller said.
CityNews has reached out to the Transport Safety Board of Canada (TSB), the federal body that investigates aircraft-related incidents, for an update on what happened in Ajax on Monday night.
A spokesperson said that under its classification system, if there were no deaths or serious injuries and the injuries were minor, it is unlikely there would be a more complex investigation. He said the Ajax incident would be “recorded in a scope suitable for the imaginable”. long-term security analysis, statistical reporting, or archival purposes. “
A public report of the TSB incident sent to CityNews through the company describes a “crash landing. “
“A Cessna 150M from Island Air Flight School and Charters Inc. experienced engine failure while conducting a flight with visual flight regulations,” he said.
“During the landing run, the left wing of the aircraft was injured when the aircraft collided with a street pole. [Aviation authorities] and the operator reported the incident to TSB. The TSB was deployed.
CityNews reached out to Air Flight School and Charters Inc. multiple times on Tuesday for comment but did not receive any reaction by the time of publication.
Mason Fraser, assistant lead flight instructor in Seneca College’s aviation program, who is unfamiliar with the main points or immediate cases that led to the engine failure but relied on reports of the Ajax incident, praised the pilot.
“The pilot had to make quick decisions about where to land. Regardless, they chose to land on the road and were able to pull away, which in the end is a very smart scenario. It doesn’t look like anyone was taking injury seriously and that’s an optimal outcome,” he told CityNews in an interview Tuesday afternoon.
“This driver had to deal with a very stressful and very complicated situation. “
Fraser said pilots will have to be educated on “forced approaches,” noting that testing is done on the ground and in the air. He noted that education is imperative because of the speed with which pilots have to make decisions.
“So every 1,000 feet or so, they have about two minutes to do their procedures and everything,” he said.
“Therefore, the pilots are trained to first identify what the problem was and try to correct it immediately to see if they can restart the engine.
“Failing that, the most important thing is to know where to land. From what I understand, this particular incident happened at night, which increases the risk a bit because it’s harder to identify where to land.
When asked what it’s like to drive a Cessna 150, Fraser said it’s one of the most popular models of the 20th century for teaching. He also called it “very safe. “
“He has a wonderful track record in protection and training. It’s a very solid plane to fly and very, very smart to teach other people how to fly airplanes. It is also a cost-effective platform for flight schools to teach and academics to learn. Fraser said.
Given the mixed use of Ajax where the plane landed, he said there were other demanding situations to overcome, especially at night.
“If you couldn’t get through it with your own car, unless it’s a four-by-four truck, a plane the length of the Cessna 150 landing on the highway would have trouble with that terrain. It can dig gently in the snow or dirt and that presents a lot of disorders,” Fraser said when asked if the nearby box would have been a better alternative.
“The road is more like an airstrip, but it’s also surrounded by many other elements.
“It’s all a series of commitments and the driver has to make that decision very temporarily and eventually, in this case, he’ll be able to get out of it. “
With files via Kyle Hocking
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